How to convert routed port to switched port in ACI - Leaf

[m7mmd3bbas]

Hi Folks,

This is my first contribution to the great cisco community and hope to get my question answered.

Now, i have two leafs with 1, 10, and 25 G server ports and 40 & 100 G fapric ports.

I want to use 2 fabric ports as VPC connecting to the FW.

Is there a way to do that?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

[Sergiu.Daniluk]

Hi @m7mmd3bbas 

Welcome to the Cisco Community! ^_^

You can change the uplink ports (40/100G ports) to downlink on the leaf, from:

Fabric -> Inventory -> Pod X -> Leaf X (click on the leaf name) -> Interface tab -> Change the mode to "Configuration" in the right corner, select the desired port(s), then click on "Downlink" to change it's operational usage. In my case I do not have any eligible ports for donwlink conversion, but the Downlink button is next to the highlighted Fabric port.

EDIT:

How to use: Choose the switch. Click an eligible port, and then click Uplink or Downlink and click Submit. Reload the switch for the change to take effect.

Rules about Uplink/Downlink Restrictions

• This functionality is supported on the following Cisco switches:

  • N9K-C9348GC-FXP

  • N9K-C93180LC-EX and N9K-C93180YC-FX

  • N9K-93180YC-EX, N9K-C93180YC-EX, and N9K-C93180YC-EXU

  • N9K-C93108TC-EX and N9K-C93108TC-FX

• The last two ports have to be uplink ports.

  The maximum number of uplinks varies depending upon the type of switch.

  For N9K-C9348GC-FXP, N9K-C93108TC-EX, N9K-C93108TC-FX, ports with operating speed of 1G cannot be changed from uplink to downlink.

  For N9K-C93180LC-EX, all the even ports (for example, 2, 4, 6… 28, 30, 32), ports 29 and port 31 cannot be converted.

Stay safe,

Sergiu

P.S. Don't forget to mark answers as correct if it answers your question or if it solves your problem!

[m7mmd3bbas]

Hi @Sergiu.Daniluk ,

Thanks a lot for your quick response. It is faster than the TAC

Although your solution showed me a good place to do important config, i couldn't find an option to downlink the fapric port to work as regular server port in order to configure VPC.

Hope below screenshot can help:

(i want the configuration of port 58 [fapric port] to be the something like 46 [server port])

Thanks again and truly appreciate your feedback.

BR

[Sergiu.Daniluk · Accepted solution]

Hi @m7mmd3bbas 

I am sure TAC is quite busy with network down cases ^_^

My mistake about the previous post. Idk why I mentioned the Fabric button.. The one you need to use is the "Downlink". (the buttons are grayed out to such a degree that they are barley visible).

Few details about the Downlink convertion:

How to use: Convert uplinks to downlinks here in a port profile. Choose the switch. Click an eligible port, and then click Uplink or Downlink and click Submit. Reload the switch for the change to take effect.

Rules about Uplink/Downlink Restrictions

• This functionality is supported on the following Cisco switches:

  • N9K-C9348GC-FXP

  • N9K-C93180LC-EX and N9K-C93180YC-FX

  • N9K-93180YC-EX, N9K-C93180YC-EX, and N9K-C93180YC-EXU

  • N9K-C93108TC-EX and N9K-C93108TC-FX

• The last two ports have to be uplink ports.

  The maximum number of uplinks varies depending upon the type of switch.

  For N9K-C9348GC-FXP, N9K-C93108TC-EX, N9K-C93108TC-FX, ports with operating speed of 1G cannot be changed from uplink to downlink.

  For N9K-C93180LC-EX, all the even ports (for example, 2, 4, 6… 28, 30, 32), ports 29 and port 31 cannot be converted.

Hope it helps,

Sergiu

[m7mmd3bbas]

I could not thank you enough @Sergiu.Daniluk ..

I am wondering if you got any chance to work on ACI sim 4.26h ! ... in order to downgrade a leaf port, a reboot is required. If i restart the ESXI VM, the whole setup is wiped and i have to do it again .

Any thoughts?

BR

[Robert Burns]

Are you trying to modify an Uplink/Downlink of a virtual Leaf within a Sim?

Robert

[m7mmd3bbas]

Hi @Robert Burns 

yes i do ... wondering if there is a way?!

thnx

[O.K.]

Hi, 

Thank you for your answer @Sergiu.Daniluk . I know this post is a bit old but I'm wondering if there is a way to do this in an automated way. We would like to change on all of our leaf switches port 1/51-52 as downlink and I wanted to write an ansible playbook for it. The problem is I can't figure out which module/path should I use to accomplish this via API.  Normally I use API inspector in such cases but when I configure an uplink port as a downlink, there isn't any post request appearing in API inspector. If somebody can help me with this I will be grateful. Thanks in advance. 

Regards.

[Sergiu.Daniluk]

Hi @O.K. 

Yeah, it looks like you cannot change that from API.

I have tried this:

method: POST
URL: https://{{apic_ip}}/api/mo/topology/pod-1/node-201/sys/ops/slot-lcslot-1/portpol-49.json
body:
{
    "eqptPortP": {
        "attributes": {
            "ctrl": "uplink",
            "dn": "topology/pod-1/node-201/sys/ops/slot-lcslot-1/portpol-49"
        }
    }
}

response:
{
    "totalCount": "1",
    "imdata": [
        {
            "error": {
                "attributes": {
                    "code": "170",
                    "text": "Admin implicit props cannot be modified, class=eqptPortP, prop=ctrl"
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

However, you can do this change via CLI of APIC:

apic3# conf 
apic3(config)# leaf 201
apic3(config-leaf)# interface ethernet 1/50
apic3(config-leaf-if)# port-direction downlink 

You can even use ranges for leafs: leaf201-202

Take care,

Sergiu

[O.K.]

Hi @Sergiu.Daniluk ,

Thank you once again for your time! 

I think I have just found the solution today, it was cumbersome but here it is:

The solution is actually documented here but the problem was I wanted to use a JSON request but it didn't work until I found this issue on GitHub so I wrote the req. like this and it worked. 

 - name: Change the interface as down/uplink
    aci_rest:
      hostname: "{{ inventory_hostname }}"
      username: "{{ansible_user }}"
      password: "{{ ansible_password }}"
      validate_certs: False
      path: "/api/node/mo/uni/infra/prtdirec.json"
      method: post
      content: {
                "infraRsPortDirection":{
                  "attributes":{
                    "tDn":"topology/pod-{{pod_id}}/paths-{{node_id}}/pathep-[eth1/52]","direc":"DownLink"
                    }
                  }
                }

Regards,

Oguz

[Sergiu.Daniluk]

Nice!

[m7mmd3bbas]

thnx